How I met France
by Danuberiver
Summary: "One day everybody will be free, but not until they are at peace with themselves, and that is, my dear, an extremely hard thing to achieve." A strange story in which dead Enjolras faces the paradox of reality, Patria wears white dress and Gavroche embarks on his education. Enjoy :)
1. Awakening

**Enjolras was never supposed to end up with Eponine or Grantaire. He was not supposed to survive the revolution either. **

**No. He was supposed to die. **

**He was supposed to die, because he and his friends were created as symbols of great idealism, a theory that does not work in our real world.**

**But what if the world is not real anymore?**

**...**

**How I met France:**

_(a Les Miserables fanfiction)_

_**1. Awakening**_

Enjolras never thought much about dying and what comes after it. Surely, the possibility of death was a natural part of all the revolution business, it was the necessary risk, that must have been taken. However, he was not afraid of it. He didn´t believe much in heavens or hells and simply concentrated himself on this world, which was full of unjustice. If he tries to reform it and fails, somebody else will come, will finish his work. Being sure about that, he didn´t care about the fate of his lonely soul.

Or, at least he believed he didn´t, because despite all these facts he felt miserably when he watched all his friends falling one by one, in front of his eyes. They all lost their lives for the philosophy they believed, philosophy that came out of the clever books and _his_ own mind.

And then, when his turn came and 14 carabines were pointing at his chest, something undesired moved in the back corner of his mind, and that something asked : Was it _really_ worth it?

And suddenly, he was afraid. He really was – that odd animal-like feeling reached the bottom of his stomach like heavy rocks. At least he didn´t show it in his face, because, and he knew it, the national guardsmen were afraid too.

Then the shots cracked out and everything burst in pain for a second.

And he was gone.

Gone,

but then he was back again.

Not all at once, of course. It felt much similar to waking up after one of these long nights spent with manifest writing and three hour sleep. His thoughts were running around, he couldn´t grasp them. And the environment? When he blinked once, it appeared black and white scattered with crazy rough dots, the second time it had all the colours of the rainbow, so he rather closed his eyes.

"Wake up" a voice whispered. A sweet, calm, girls voice.

A girls voice? He opened his eyes once more, but was unable to focus.

"Get up, Enjolras,"it said ,this time somebody touched his hand and tried to pull it.

Slowly, feeling a little bit dizzy, Enjolras sat down. He was sitting on a wet, cold surface of a street road. Street road in Paris. Street road of Rue de la Chanvrerie.

"You fell out of the window, you know?" said the voice sadly, and finally Enjolras noticed his owner.

There was a girl, no, young woman, maybe a little younger than him kneeling at the pavement. She watched him curiously with bright blue eyes, and pale hair was falling on her chest. Her dress was white, but there was something sticked in her hair, something familiar- a tricolore flower.

Suddenly a horrible idea came to his mind. Was this girl at the barricades? He forbade women to participate in that bloodbath. His expression must have spoken a lot, because she smiled at him and said: "I was not there, if you want to know, not technically."

Then she stood up. Why weren´t her robes dirty?

"Are you coming?" She asked him, and hold out her hand, as if it was the most common thing to say to the man she had never seen before, and smiled with sweet, welcoming smile. Though there was something strange about that smile, something sad and knowledgeable.

However, he too, could not stay sitting on the pavement forever.

Enjolras stood up.

It was not just a hallucination, they actually were there, in front of the café Musain.

The street looked awful. Messy. And there were bodies. Horrific mixture of broken furniture, blue uniforms and other fabrics soaked with blood, covering human flesh. Somewhere there were his friends - in a big pile of garbage.

Than his sight strayed up and he saw the first floor window of Musian. Something was hanging out of it, something he knew very well – the loose corner of his red coat. Odd, he thought to himself as he touched the hem of his own red coat he had on _right now_.

He also touched his chest, but t didn´t hurt and, surprisingly, there were no bloodmarks on his shirt.

"Come with me," said the woman once more, and softly puled his hand. He didn´t protest.

And so they went.

Nobody saw them, nobody followed. Just the empty windows, some broken, witnessed their presence with sad, understanding stares.

The Paris was asleep, or at least pretending to be.

Enjolras imagined women and little children trembling under tables during the whole night, listening to the shooting and shouting of men. However, the battle was over now, and everything seemed the same as before. Sure, the city was grim, with scent of gunpowder floating in the air, but that will fade away. Somebody will come out and clean the pavement of their blood.

They were silent. Enjolras was too exhausted, too puzzled and maybe even too intelligent to ask questions of that type: _So am I dead than?_ or _Where are we going? This is nonsense! Who are you?! Where are the others?_

He kept his mouth shut and was glad that she did too.

Slowly, the morning sun rose over the houses. Its light made the buildings look friendlier, somehow more real. He was glad that there still were mornings in the world.

Though, in the dim light of dawn he realized the streets were not completely empty. Sometimes a human figure moved in the corner of his eye and the further they walked, the more of them appeared. Enjolras assumed they won´t notice them (I´m still dead, right?), but later a woman with a child turned her face in their direction and gave him a small, respectable nod.

And then he heard the melody. It was obscurely familiar. The Amis used to hum it in Musain, when they were determined in what they were trying to do, and sang it unnecessarily loud when the determination started to leave them alone. The song of angry men. The song of red and black and better tomorrows. It was a lie. There won´t be better tomorrows, not for them. But still...

He tried to catch what the lyrics were, because he was sure they were somehow different, but he didn´t understand much. Too many people were singing it.

Too many? He gave the girl in white a puzzled expression, but she just smiled and led him further on, towards the heart of Paris itself.

Just there, finally, he saw it There was a barricade on the main square, the barricade higher than anything he had seen in his life. People were crawling at the bottom of it like little ants, climbing over, some were holding flags and waving them with a crazy eagerness.

What should that mean? Enjolras looked around, but he didn´t see anything similar to the measured formation of the National Guard nearby.

They walked into the crowd of people. None of them appeared undernourished, tired or especially dirty as many people of Paris used to look like. Nobody was carrying weapons. A group of girls with flowers in their hair rised their sight at him and giggled. An elder man he had never seen before run across his path, almost bumped into him, when he stopped, lowered his hat and shouted: ,,Good morning! An interesting day we have, don´t we!"and before he disappeard n the crowd: ,,Do you hear the people sing?"

For the first time in the delirious experience of that morning, Enjolras wanted to ask his guide a question, but with horror he realized he was alone. The woman in white had disappeared, probably in the mass of people, and he didn´t even notice it.

"Thereee he iiis!"somebody ballowed and shocked Enjolras found himself under a pile of bodies.

"We expected you somewhere around!" Courfreyac yelled.

"Although we _hoped_ he would _not _be here to find, Courfeyrac!" said Combeferre with that calm tone of philosopher who wants to say: _You are rude, mate._

Of course, they didn´t want him to die. He didn´t want them to die either... but what came out of it anyway? He looked around, to the faces he knew for such a long time.

Dreamy-looking Jehan was holding a rose, maybe one of those giggling ladies gave it to him, Joly looked uncertain, Enjolras would bet he wondered if he can catch a flu here, or not, and Bossuet was no longer bald-headed (what looked quite strange).

All of them were smiling, they were really happy they see him, and there was no blood or dirt on their vests or bodies.

However, he felt miserably, and bitter feeling of guilt stuck in his throat.

"We failed," he said, finally. "The revolution is over."

"Who cares about revolution, if we can drink,"said Grantaire who was holding something very similar to a bottle of absinthe. Courfeyrac, Feully and Bossuet laughed.

"You are not true," Combeferre turned his head and waved in the direction of the giant barricade. ,,Here we won."

"But that´s not real," Enjolras murmured. "Whatever it is, it´s not real."

"Real is what you accept to be. We are here, and this is all we can see. We should not worry about something that´s inaccessible for us, "claimed Combeferre.

"We do not blame you," Bahorel said.

"Yes, I would still have surely died of some lethal disease,"Joly added.

They were silent for a while. The world went by.

Enjolras watched a group of children dancing in a circle on one spot of pavement that was free of the chaotical adults. Were all of these men and women really dead people? Or was he actually laying somewhere in the corner of café Musain bleeding out after those gunshots, which didn´t kill him immediately, but made him suffer with intensive hallucinations?

"Anyway,"started Coufeyrac after a while. ,"Who did bring you hear?"

"Excuse me?" Enjolras asked perplexedly.

"What he means is," Combeferre explained, "that we came here one by one, but each of us had some kind of a guide. By the way, Courfeyrac, did you realize it could be private?"

"No I didn´t,"Courfeyrac answered back. "I told all of you about mine."

They were so much the same, Enjolras thought to himself. Maybe it was real after all. Everything. Everybody. And even if they were not, he was glad they behaved that way.

"I met some kind of a... girl. She said me to follow her," he said.

"What?" Courfeyrac´s face turned dangerously red. "You, Enjolras, who _never_ cares about any girl, got a woman?! A nice woman!?"

"I... think so. Dressed in white. She had tricolore in her hair..."

"Phhh! A tricolore. I guess that´s everything you noticed about her! Do you know who came for me? A stinky little dog! That´s unfair!"

"You told me you loved that dog once,"spoke Jehan humbly.

"Yes, when I was twelve! Than my father shot it, because it got rabies..."

"But you did met that woman before, didn´t you?" asked Combeferre.

"I have never seen her in my life!" Enjolras declared.

"That ´s strange than. I was trying to complete a theory. All of us came here with somebody they already knew, but who died a long time ago. For example my sister, Feully´s parents, Courfeyrac´s dog..."

"Don´t mention that!"shouted Courfeyrac.

Everybody laughed. Even Enjolras smiled a little, trying to chase the images of battle, destruction and death out of his mind. It was hard. Very hard.

They walked towards the great barricade and slowly started to climb over it. One by one. Combeferre was the first, Enjolras the last. What did they expect to find on the other side? He didn´t know. Like a dreamy memory words came to his mind : _Somewhere behind the barricade , is there a world you long to see?_ He used to believe it once...

As he watched Joly disappear behind a colossal table, a little cough came from behind his back and subsequently: "Good morning, chef."

Enjolras turned his head, but saw nothing expect people busy with climbing the barricade.

"Here down, chef,"it said again, and as he lowered his eyes, he saw a little boy in a baret carrying a red flag on his shoulder, larger than his own body. He was somehow familiar to him.

"Our little messenger, if I remember well," Enjolras said, trying not to think about the awful kind of death this child got.

"Very well chef,"said the boy and saluted.

"I think Enjolras would be enough."

"Factically?"boy´s eyes sparkled. ,,I´m Gavroche, gimme the paw!"

They shoke hands together, while the immense flag almost fell from the boy´s shoulder.

"What do you need it for?" Enjolras asked amused.

The boy blinked. "It has been a _revolution! _I wanta show people! But I´m too small, they don´t notice me."

Enjolras smiled. "I can carry you," he said.

And a little gamin sat on shoulders of a revolutionary and shouted: _Hurrraaa!_ and _Vive la France! _and waved the flag so that everybody could see it.

And so they went on together,

towards the better world.

...

**THANK YOU for reading this story! I´m really happy**** if you liked it, or at least read to the end. ****It should have been a oneshot, but the climax somehow ran away in this part, so I may write one or two more chapters - if you continue reading of course. ****Muchachahaaa!**

**_Note_: English is NOT my mothertongue. This is the very first story I didn´t do as an assignment for school, and if some mistakes made you cross, I'M SORRY, SO SORRY! However I´m willing to correct everything you tell me about :)**

**PS: To the points above we could add: _He was definetly not supposed to hang around in primitive fanfiction stories written by young people who don´t know a thing about life in the 19th Century, about Victor Hugo or French culture._ However, as long as this would apply also to me and this particular story, I´m not gonna put it there... and I disclaim, of course all the aouthor rights. Im´m not Victor Hugo, guys, sorry. **

**Your Danuberiver**


	2. Above

**Ideas are definitely not ment to behave as people. Ideas do not have body and voice, they do not give looks and do not complain. **

**Ideas won´t tell you what _they think_ about _your ideas_. **

**Ideas ar simply... ideas.**

** They stay inside your mind, or on the paper where a good guy puts them with his ink and pen.**

**However, who knows where is the boundary of a mind? How can you yourself know whether you are not just an idea in somebody else's mind ?**

**...**

** 2. Above**

Above the city, there lived a spirit. Just like all the spirits that once rose from human mind,

she felt much better in cities than in pure country. Cities were the places people concentrated themselves, where the population burst in wide numbers, and just in the same way their thoughts did.

She had known millions of such places in the multiverse, of course, areas where people took her with them, when they crossed the boundaries, unaware of the fact they carried something in their heads, an idea that was alive, as, in the end, all the ideas became, creating new and new universes.

But she liked this particular spot maybe the most. Probably, because it was one of these worlds spiritual enough to make people´s imageries come true, but physical enough to grant her a form, and that bit she found quite pleasant.

For example, she could have her own eye-colour and haircut and wear a real dress. If you once have a personality, you need to express yourself somehow.

Right now she sat at the roof of one particular three-grounded house . She could hear people thinking, as she sat there, on the top of the world. She could listen to the delicate dreamy whispering of love and faith, she could sense worries, similar to the stormy sky in their colour, she could taste the bitter-sweet flavour of philosophic and peppery flavour of political ideas ( though both of them were unfortunately rare in occurence).

She sat there and patted Voltaire behind his ear. Voltaire was one of the hundreds of cats roaming the roofs of this city. She thought of them as colleagues, in a way, the cats, spots and stripes present in every city she ever entered, they could be symbols of it, free and still bound to people, just as she was. She always gave them names. Everybody should have a name, even if he was a cat.

"Look, Voltaire,"she said," How beautiful the Paris is."

Because it really was Paris, buzzing underneath, whispering as a thunder of human voices combined with the noise of machines and clapping of horse-hooves.

"1932. Milky way, Solar system, Earth, Europe, _France," _she murmured. "One of millions."

She was not happy. She was tired. A headache drummed in her temples.

,,I went elsewhere today morning, Voltaire. It was another revolution. Blood, dust and death. Over and over again. They never stop struggling."

The cat narrowed it´s ears and mewed. It was just a cat, after all.

She hid her face in the hands.

Sometimes she thought she hated people. For they were little and thought they are so big and they changed the worlds as often as their socks. And they never stopped messing up with changes.

People, she thought, loved and a hated changes at once.

They loved them, because they were too curious and never satisfied with their present condition of being.

But they hated them, because there was something animal-like within them and that something was used to building habits.

Those two elements of human nature mashed and mixed and fought each other inside a human heart and when they emerged out, they created conflicts and battles and quarrels - sometimes small as a family, but sometimes colossal as the globe.

Strange creatures those people were.

However, it was still human thought that gave birth to her soul.

Gave birth and then forgot about her.

Because if they ever listened to her, they would not keep making the same mistakes.

And still...

She put the cat on her lap and played with its silk-like hair.

" It´s strange , one of those revolutionaries called for me."

"The cat gave her confused look.

"You know, that´ s what they do, when they move here from another world, they call for somebody to help them to cross."

The cat hummed.

" They do it subconsciously, of course. Usually it´s a friend who arrived before, or a parent..."

She narrowed her legs on the slanted roof tiles. She was not afraid of falling.

" Nobody have _ever called _for me before, Voltaire," she whispered.

And smiled. They had been people before, who wrote poems about her, or shouted at pulpits who she is, or what she thinks. Some, just like the revolutionaries from today, came through great suffering because of her, in their worlds. People who thought they would call for her, when their time comes, but they never did. Everybody had a wife, or a grandpa , or a long missed friend from the war. People were always more important to people than ideas.

Nobody ever called for her.

Up till now.

She looked down to the thundering streets of Paris. They were glowing with calm, foggy light of the gass–lanterns. It was 19th Century Paris, after all. The scent of rain was rising from the pavements. Somewhere there, in the labyrinth of curling lines and twitching paths, somewhere there wandered the man who called for _France_.


End file.
